Complete this sentence. A brand is a...

Every brand begins with a pulse — a reason beyond profit. But somewhere between campaigns and dashboards, that pulse fades. Most founders mistake marketing for meaning and chase what others praise, until their brand forgets why it was created. This article explores how great brands — from Instagram to Netflix — rediscovered their essence, turned customer truth into strategy, and built category dominance. Featuring Skadooosh’s 7-step playbook, it’s a guide to transforming successful businesses into unforgettable brands.

Skadooosh Digital Updated on Oct 10, 2025

The Forgotten Truth

Every brand is born with a pulse—a reason beyond profit. But somewhere between campaigns and dashboards, that pulse fades. Founders start chasing what others praise, and the brand forgets why it was created.

Skadooosh exists to help them remember.

Complete this sentence. A brand is a...

Most of us have our own concept of what a brand is and the most common answers I have heard is:

To truly understand the answer, we went to the guy who coined the term: BRAND.

And he said, A brand is not your logo or tagline. As Marty Neumeier puts it, a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.

So the next question is: Can you control how people feel about you?

You don’t control that feeling—but you influence it at every touchpoint. That influence is branding: impression management. Be consistent. Be true. Anything else smells inauthentic.

So what happens when a business does branding the right way?

It becomes a brand that is unique, memorable and recognised, not just nationally but globally too.

There are four kinds of businesses in the world.

The First One:

NOT GOOD AND NOT DIFFERENT: These businesses don't have good products and their brand messaging is not different compared to its competitors. In turn, they have no reach and no revenue.

The Second Business:

DIFFERENT BUT NOT GOOD: These businesses have a very different and unique brand messaging compared to their competitors but don't have good products. These businesses have some reach due to unique messaging but customers soon find out that their products aren't good, which leads to no revenue.

The Third Business:

GOOD BUT NOT DIFFERENT: Any business that survives the first few years and has consistent customers is in this stage. These businesses have good products but their messaging is similar and there's nothing unique. Since this business has no differentiated messaging, the revenue stagnates and it feels like it has hit a ceiling, even though the business has the capacity to increase production, increase its marketing budget and handle more customers. This stage is the worst because the hustle is always there. The business goes through constant fluctuations and it feels like almost nothing is under the business's control.

The Fourth Business:

This is the sweet spot. This is the stage where every established business needs to get to and play in. These businesses have good products and have a differentiated brand messaging, compared to it competitors. In turn, these brands become memorable and recognised by the customers. Historically, they are able to charge premium prices for the products because in the customer's eyes, what the business does is very unique and none of its competitors do that.

But how do you do this though?

If you are an established business, then by listening to your existing customers.

Most businesses think and say what the founder or the marketing team thinks the USP of the business is but businesses that become brand, flip the script. They think and say what their customer says the USP of the business is. The founder runs the business, the marketing team markets the business but it is the customer who engages and interacts with the business, which means the customer truly knows what the USP of the business is.

What businesses do:

What Nationally recognised brands do:

While businesses chase trends and tactics to scale their business, brands do the opposite. They find their Brand's soul and scale by marketing their soul, which makes different from their competitors.

Here are some examples of Businesses who became globally recognised brands by doing branding right.

In 2010, an app was founded in which people can tag their geo-location and share it with their friends. GPS based Social media was supposed to be the next big thing in 2010. This app was called Burbn.

After getting about a 1000 users, the team wanted to understand what its customers loved about their app. When analysiing the data, the team found that the customer weren't using the GPS feature of the app.

What I didn't tell you was that the app had a secondary feature. Not only can the users tag and share their location, they could also upload the photos of the place they were in. The app never marketed this feature because according to them, they were a GPS based Social media app.

After understanding this, the team completely rebranded themselves and marketed themselves as a Photo sharing social media app.

The Result?

The app was sold to Meta for $ 1 Billion in just under 2 years.

Another example is Netflix.

Netflix was launched in 1998. At that time, Blockbuster was the leading player in the Rent movies market space. The founders saw an opportunity to beat Blockbuster. Blockbuster used to charge heavy penalty for late returns. So, the founders thought what if they start a DVD-by-mail service and Netflix won't have no late returns because they will collect it from the customers home.

Just like Instagram, after getting a couple of thousands of users, when Netflix wanted to expand nationally in the US, the team wanted to understand what customers actually loved about the business model.

When they started analysing, they were pretty shocked to hear from their customers that the NO-LATE PENALTY, wasn't such a huge deal breaker for them. Instead, what the customers loved about the business was that they didn't have to travel to the store, come back home and again travel to return the movie. What they loved about Netflix was the fact that they could rent the movie through their website and watch the movie without ever needing to step out of their home.

As soon as Netflix understood this, they started to develop the streaming technology and rebranded themselves as a streaming platform and we all know what happened after that. It would come as a shock to us if a home doesn't have Netflix today.

The Skadooosh Playbook (7 Steps)

At Skadooosh, we follow a 7-step process to find a brand's soul and guide them to transform their successful business into a nationally recognised brand.

Define the customer (psychographics > demographics). What do they believe, fear, desire?
Articulate the transformation (Current State → Desired State). Draw the wall they can’t cross.
Write the value prop in emotional language (outcomes, not features).
Choose 2 tone words + 2 look/feel words. Everything must ladder up to these.
Map your competitor set and author a reframe that makes your difference obvious.
Signal your position with price & scarcity. Make working with you feel like a privilege—then overdeliver.
Design the Customer journey with a permission curriculum that blends Facts + Feelings + Fun at each stage.

Ritual > Tactic:

Why “Why-They-Follow Mapping”

We don’t churn logos or funnels. We reveal essence.

In a 15-day deep-work sprint, Why-They-Follow Mapping distills:

The X-factor customers already love (in their words)
A positioning that puts you in a bigger, whiter market space
A doctrine (simple language, visual cues, price posture) that aligns product, content, and offers